


The Lark's Flight

by thejunipertree



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Carnival, F/F, First Meetings, Wrestling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:28:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27866142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejunipertree/pseuds/thejunipertree
Summary: Rosethorn is a novitiate at the Winding Circle temple. At the solstice festival, an acrobatic young woman catches her eye.
Relationships: Dedicate Lark/Dedicate Rosethorn
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	The Lark's Flight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [napkins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/napkins/gifts).



It was the longest day of the year and Rosethorn was wandering through the market square. She had sold her stock in the morning, thankfully - neither she nor the plants tolerated the abundance of summer sun well. Now she was free to take in the sights and sounds of the festival. As a novitiate, she lived a somewhat sheltered life, spending most of her time within the walls of winding circle. That was fine with her most of the time - what need had she to be around strangers when she could dig her feet into the loose dirt in the garden. Yes, she had thrown down roots early. Nonetheless, there were times when curiosity got the better of her and tempted her to send creeping tendrils into the wider world.

Whatever she was looking for, it didn’t seem to be here. People were careless and frivolous, bumping into one another, talking far too loudly, spewing crumbs on their neighbors. Besides, the air stank faintly of sweat. The crowd pressed tighter until Rosethorn could no longer make her way forward. They were, she realized, gathering to watch some sort of spectacle several feet to her right. With her forceful demeanor, she had managed to find herself in the second row of spectators. 

They were looking at the largest man Rosethorn had ever seen standing shirtless in the middle of the crowd. He was as tall as a horse and had the musculature to match. People were circled around him chatting excitedly. He shook the hand of a man Rosethorn knew to be a blacksmith and waved him out of the circle. 

“Who next?” called a voice. It was only now that Rosethorn noticed a much smaller, thinner man standing in the larger man’s shadow. The man, who held with him a box and slips of paper, called out: “Who would like to test their strength against the Colossus of Tharios?”

There was a moment of silence. The crowd gave their neighbors sideways glances, but no one spoke up.

Then a slender woman to Rosethorn’s right called out, “I will face him!” She moved into the circle. Instinctively Rosethorn followed after her, but stopped herself as she got to the first row. The woman, who moved with a dancer’s grace, was utterly dwarfed by this Colossus.

“Young lady,” the Colossus’s smaller partner said, “I will give you a chance to change your mind. We see that you are brave, you need not run this risk.”

The woman merely stretched her arms out over her head and widened her stance. 

“Okay then,” he said, “We have our next match. The Colossus of Tharios against…”

“Lark,” The woman responded.

“Against Lark! We will allow a small window to place bets and then we will begin.”

The crowd convulsed as everyone moved to get their money and slips of paper towards the attendant. He collected the bets and handed out slips - there was a stack of blue slips next to him that remained entirely untouched - meanwhile, the crowd was full of red slips.

“She doesn’t have a chance,” Rosethorn’s neighbor exclaimed, “Not after he beat the blacksmith in under a minute!” 

While all of this was going on, Rosethorn studied the woman, who stood with calm poise, seemingly unaffected by the crowd’s lack of confidence in her. She kept her head high and her gaze calm. When she caught Rosethorn staring at her, she gave a small smile and twitched her fingers as if to wave. Rosethorn was suddenly aware of her heart’s beating in her chest. The woman was beautiful - long limbs like a dancer and something inviting but mischievous in her gaze. When the hubbub died down and the bets were placed, the two combatants squared off in the middle of the circle. 

“On my signal,” the assistant called, “we’ll begin! Remember, it’s one fall to a finish. The first person to pin their opponent for a count of three or get them to surrender will be declared the winner! Now ready?” Both Lark and the Colossus nodded. “And, Go!”

The attendant dropped his hand but neither of them moved at first. Both of the combatants stared hard at each other, waiting for the other to move. Lark’s leg twitched. The Colossus saw it and launched himself at her, but she rolled gracefully away. This pattern repeated itself several times. The large man tried to get within arm’s length, but each time Lark was able to twist, turn, or tumble out of the way. 

The crowd, however, was less than impressed. “You’re not going to win by waiting him out!” an anonymous voice shouted. “Yeah,” another called, “you can’t just keep running away!”

Lark paid them no heed but by this time, the Colossus had figured out her strategy. On her next roll, he anticipated her dodge and met her as she emerged from the tuck. “Got you!” he said with a laugh, grabbing her by the elbow. Lark tried to pull her arm away and, failing that moved in closer, grabbing the back of his neck, desperate to get some leverage. The two were so close together now that they almost appeared to be talking. Lark was nudging - or kicking, more likely - at her opponent’s feet. The Colossus, clearly fed up with it, launched her into the crowd.

Lark flew backwards, landing in a heap on top of Rosethorn. Taken aback, the normally sharp-tongued woman was speechless. The other woman was warm on top of her, her hand resting on Rosethorn’s bicep. Then, the hand slid down and grasped Rosethorn’s own for a brief moment. Before Rosethorn could parse what happened, Lark was back on her feet and heading back into the fight. Rosethorn still felt something soft in her hand and held it up to look. It was a piece of cloth with the name of a popular boarding house stitched into it. 

Lark caught Rosethorn’s eye as she dodged the Colossus’s wildly swinging arms. Seemingly unphased by the danger posed by her much larger opponent, she grinned at Rosethorn and then she winked!

The match continued in the same pattern as the opening moments. The Colossus kept launching attack after attack but somehow Lark always managed to evade. After getting caught out once, the woman pulled out increasingly spectacular moves for her dodges, leaping over the man’s head, landing on her hands before springing back further, using flips and somersaults to dazzle the audience and confuse the man she was facing. 

The Colossus grew slower and slower as Lark twisted and tumbled around him. Finally, she was able to slide under his legs and pop up behind him. She immediately capitalized on her advantageous position and launched herself onto his back. From there, she was able to twist her legs around both of his arms, pulling them back while also pushing his head and neck forward. The Colossus tried to break the hold, but as strong as his arms were, the combination of her strong legs and the relative weakness of the muscles when locked in that position offered no escape. Exhausted, he cried out: “I yield!”

Lark released him and landed softly on the ground behind him. The crowd was silent, staring at their red tickets. The Colossus pushed his way through them, looking bitterly dejected. Lark walked off in the other direction, bumping lightly into Rosethorn as she passed. The bookmaker, Rosethorn noticed, was nowhere to be found. How strange, she thought, but she wasn’t much versed in these things so she didn’t think too much of it before heading away herself.

What was much more fascinating was the strip of fabric Lark has slipped her. Obviously the other woman wanted to meet. Rosethorn could imagine what for but her years in the Circle temples had not prepared her for such a proposition. It would be easy enough to ignore it. She could return to Winding Circle and go about her life as if nothing had happened other than a somewhat unusual athletic competition in the public square. Lark was probably one of those woman from far off lands who came to the market once a year, if that. There was no need to worry about snubbing someone she would probably never see again. 

But… she would probably never see her again. Rosethorn couldn’t help it. Her mind returned to the playful wink Lark had thrown her, to her soft and confident smile. She studied the fabric in her hands and started. Something in it called out to her. It seemed to reach right into her chest and touch her magic. The cloth was cotton, Rosethorn noted, so that could have been the reason. Still, she handled plant-based fabrics all the time and had never felt a connection this strong, this assertive. 

Could it be that this woman had a magic something like her own? Curiosity piqued, Rosethorn reached out a small, curling tendril of her magic and prodded the piece of fabric with it. Immediately, she felt something welcome her in, wrapping around her, welcoming her in. Startled, she quickly pulled back. The woman definitely had magic, but while it certainly seemed like a kind more than happy to work alongside her own, it was definitely not the same. 

Rosethorn sat down on a wall that was under the shade of a large tree growing inside a private garden. The revelation of magic in the fabric hadn’t done much to solve her dilemma: it had only succeeded in raising the stakes. The mysterious woman was still equal parts alluring and terrifying and the choice before her was stark. Meet this woman at the lodging house and explore what it was about her that moved Rosethorn so or let her tumble out of her life, never to be seen again.

The tree dipped down a branch, its leaves caressing her feet. It didn’t know much about meeting mysterious strangers, having grown from a seed right here where it was rooted but it had sent seeds of its own into the world, watched birds carrying them off into the unknown, and had never regretted it. 

As Rosethorn sat there, comforted by her arboreal friend, a group of men walked by, grumbling. Rosethorn noted the red tickets in their hands. They must not have been happy to lose their bet on something they’d thought was a sure thing. Honestly, as impressed as she was by Lark, Rosethorn could hardly believe it herself that the woman had managed to topple the Colossus. Still, as someone who valued brains over brawn, it was a heartening lesson. 

The warm afternoon sun dipped lower in the sky and the sea’s cooling breezes signaled that evening was approaching. Rosethorn’s stomach grumbled. She reached her hand into the pockets of her novitiate’s habit and felt the coins she’d received from the morning’s sales. She had already taken out the portion of it reserved for temple alms. What remained was hers to spend. I’ll just get dinner in town before I head back, she told herself. She could grab a simple meal at the boarding house, see what there was to see, and then return to her comfortable life of gardening and keeping companionship with the plants.

Rosethorn gave the tree one last brush with her fingers and headed towards the boarding house listed on the fabric scrap. It was quite far from the festival square, almost on the opposite side of the city. Rosethorn had gotten accustomed to seeing many of the same familiar strangers over the course of the holiday but, it seemed, few if any among them had ventured this far away from the festival grounds. 

Despite this, the boarding house appeared to be quite popular. She could hear the noise of revelers inside before she even opened the door. When she did, she was taken aback by the number of people inside. Of course, there had been more at the festival but, being outdoors, it hadn’t felt half as crowded as the downstairs public part of the boarding house. 

Suddenly, like water into parched earth, her eyes were drawn to the back right corner of the room. There she was: Lark. The woman’s eyebrows rose, clearly surprised her gambit had worked. Suddenly, Rosethorn felt a wave of embarrassment wash over her. Was this something she tried on everyone? God, most people were probably smart enough to know when to back away from something like this. But then Lark was coming towards her and, Mila help her, she was smiling at Rosethorn, a bigger and brighter smile than she’d yet seen.

Before she fully knew what was happening, Rosethorn felt Lark’s hand on her elbow, gently guiding her back toward the corner of the room. The touch of her hand through the fabric made something in her sing, like a plant putting out its first buds at the end of a long, cold winter. 

“You were amazing,” Rosethorn said as the two women found seats in one of the quieter corners of the pub.

Lark’s eyes glittered. “Well, I can’t take all the credit,” she replied nodding towards the bar. There was the Colossus himself, placing an order for drinks. “He actually helped me out quite a lot; I’m not quite so spry these days,” Lark said and turned her head to cough into her elbow. “The troupe gets me a tonic for big festivals, since I’m still the best and driving up bets but… It’s not the kind of thing I can do on a regular basis anymore.”

Rosethorn was distracted by the way her magic pulled towards this woman. Shaking herself, she focused on the what she was hearing. “So that was-”

“-Acrobatics, yes,” Lark interrupted.

“I was going to say, a con,” Rosethorn replied aiming for a biting tone but she couldn’t keep the softness out of her voice. Her hands clenched in the pocket of her habit, feeling the scrap of fabric. Pulling it out, she placed it on the table, smoothing down the edges. “So this is…” she ventured.

Lark leaned in, looking straight into Rosethorn’s eyes, calm and confident. “An invitation. I won’t lie to you and say it’s something I never do but… I noticed you right away and you looked like someone I’d want to get to know better.”

Rosethorn looked away blushing. It’s not that she’d never spent a fleeting night with a man or a woman before but something about this, the energy that passed from her to Lark and back again, felt big. Her eyes caught the scrap of fabric again and she ran her fingers over the letters. “So, do you always flirt with magic?”

Lark looked at her confused. “The only magic’s whatever was in the tonic I took for my cough. Believe me, if I had magic, I wouldn’t be here.”

Rosethorn’s eyes flicked back to Lark. The confusion looked genuine but what she felt, that had to be real. 

Lark slid the fabric away from the other woman, rolled it up, and tucked it away somewhere. “Maybe it’s just my presence that’s enchanting?” she teased. Then she bit her lip and, for the first time, looked uncertain. “By the way, I don’t think I ever asked your name…”

“I thought maybe you didn’t care to know,” the novitiate replied. “It’s Rosethorn.”

“Well, Rosethorn,” Lark said, standing and offering a hand, “I'm glad you found me.”

Rosethorn took the hand and felt that same rush of magic or maybe just joy.

—

The winter rains pounded down on Winding Circle. Rosethorn took off her wax cloak as she entered the hub. While she was glad the long, dry summer had finally come to an end, the wind and wet had chilled her to the bone. Crane, who had entered just ahead of her, turned around. “By the way, have you met the new novitiate?” he asked. “Lark,” he added with some disdain.

Rosethorn tried to ignore the way her heart skipped a beat when she heard the name. A coincidence, of course. Crane was ample proof how popular bird names were among those devoted to the Living Circle, even if he was committed to the illusion of having unique sophistication. She followed him to the table where, presumably, the new novitiate sat. 

Smiling up at her was a familiar catlike face. “Rosethorn,” she said, “I had hoped you’d find me.”

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to write carny Lark pulling the wool over the eyes of the gathering masses. The idea behind this scheme is that not only does the troupe make money on the fixed fight that Lark wins, her victory encourages random people in the crowd to bet on themselves to try to take out the Colossus (basically, the same trick as in "Find the Lady" games, which almost always use a plant to drum up participants). I also just really like the dynamic of "one night stand that leads to something more" and think it's a plausible beginning for these characters.


End file.
